Let’s be honest, September is the actual New Year.

Sure, January has its brand new calendars with 12 blank months that invite you to start afresh. That time of year is a big, wrapped box waiting to be opened (at that point, wrapping paper and boxes are still in our brains), and they’re holding whispers of possibilities inside.

You get to say “buh-bye” to the old and take the hand of the new, all of it accompanied by fireworks and champagne and a quick kiss at midnight.

But September is where rubber meets road, as they say, where resolutions morph into to-do lists.

Vacations are over. School starts. After the ambling pace of summer, September brings structure, routine, and office supplies. Sticky notes, notebooks, new pens, more notebooks, more sticky notes.

It’s a checklist time of year, which means things are getting real. Only X number of days until Halloween, until Thanksgiving, until Christmas. No time to waste. Up and at ’em every morning. Hit the ground running.

Which is why this past weekend I celebrated New Year’s Eve. Yes I did. There I was making resolutions, dining on steak and lobster, popping a bottle of champagne, setting off fireworks at midnight.

Haha, just kidding. I didn’t go that far. Supper was the usual fare, and fireworks did not happen. But there were resolutions, and they immediately jumped onto my daily to-do list.

And yes, there was bubbly. Because of course there was.